Big Ben is a punk of monumental proportions

April 22, 2010

He obviously forgot somewhere along the line that he has a mother and a sister - not to mention a father he is no longer afraid of.

He thinks he is bigger than life and the six-game suspension he received from NFL commissioner Roger Goodell wasn't long enough.

It needed to be eight games without the possibility of shrinking because he was compliant with stipulations.

Look, if the idiot was compliant after a 20-year-old said "No," this never would have happened.

If this thug would have been a good guy, this never would have happened.

I do not understand how prisoners get time off for good behavior when, if they had good behavior in the first place, they would not have ended up in jail.

I also do not understand how students who do not do the initial work are given extra credit to bring up their grades. If they couldn't do the work in the first place, don't give them another chance to raise their grade.

If Big Ben couldn't be an actual caring human in the first place, his six games should be six games without the chance of reducing it two games because he actually followed rules.

If this complete moron thinks its OK to do what he did, I wonder what would have happened if some guy would have done the same thing to his sister, now attending the University of Oklahoma.

Please, spare me the 'He hasn't been convicted of anything' and 'He's innocent until proven guilty.'

Enough.

Big Ben is the latest to reveal that morals have gone down the porcelain fixture.

He has thrown up on society and it is time society gives it back.

There has been enough backlash in Pittsburgh to prove fans aren't really happy with the 28-year-old.

And, they shouldn't be.

Do you think Mr. and Mrs. Roethlisberger were overjoyed with their son's actions when it came out in press, let alone the Sunday after it happened when they went to church?

How about all the thugs who were around the main thug that night.

Those guys obviously have no wives, mothers, sisters, daughters, aunts, grandmothers in their lives.

They condoned what the main thug did by covering it up.

I guess then, it would have been OK if that 20-year-old was any female in their family.

If things were on the up-and-up, the Georgia police officer who did the initial investigation would not have resigned.

You don't resign when you know you did things by the book.

He didn't and he is in a long line of males who were nothing more than neanderthals.

This is not a black thing.

This is not a white thing.

This is a thing about an idiot who doesn't get it.

I do not care that he is single.

I do not care that he is owed $31 million by the Steelers.

He is the 14-year-old bully who needs to get his behind whipped by the nearest person.

Ben needs a beatdown of massive proportions.

If the Rooney's want to save face they will trade Roethlisberger and get something for him.

I know that is easier said than done.

The problem there, though, is the backlash from the fans where Big Ben is traded because it would look like that organization is OK with what he did.

Bottom line: Roethlisberger has to go.

Now.

Once he does, he needs to be monitored like some halfway house inmate with an ankle bracelet telling everyone where he is every minute of the day.

I understand his teammates are all saying the right things when a camera or tape recorder is stuck in their face.

But, that has to stop.

They have to let him have it, teammate code or not.

Parents are not allowing their kids to wear his jerseys.

That tells you something.

Maybe he can join Tiger Woods in sex rehab.

Years ago when Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel talked at the Jefferson County Chamber of Commerce dinner at St. John Arena, he looked up into the stands and talked to the high school football players in attendance and said this"

"Gentlemen, nothing good happens after 10 p.m."

Meet Mr. Ben Roethlisberger, the poster child for that statement.

From the Associated Press:

--- The NFL and the Steelers were angered and embarrassed by the tawdry details of Roethlisberger's night out.

In a statement to police, the 20-year-old college student said Roethlisberger encouraged her, and her friends, to take numerous shots of alcohol. Then one of his bodyguards escorted her into a hallway at the Capital City nightclub in Milledgeville, Ga., sat her on a stool and left. She said Roethlisberger walked down the hallway and exposed himself.

"I told him it wasn't OK, no, we don't need to do this and I proceeded to get up and try to leave," she said. "I went to the first door I saw, which happened to be a bathroom."

According to her statement, Roethlisberger then followed her into the bathroom and shut the door.

"I still said no, this is not OK, and he then had sex with me," she wrote.

Two of her friends said they saw a bodyguard lead her into the hallway and then saw Roethlisberger follow. They said they couldn't see their friend but knew she was drunk and were worried about her.

The statements were among hundreds of pages of the case file made public last week by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

Last week, Steelers president Art Rooney II said the team would have imposed sanctions on Roethlisberger before now, but doing so would have permitted the players union to appeal any penalties.

Any suspension imposed by Goodell can be appealed only to him.

Roethlisberger, a two-time Super Bowl winner and the highest-paid player in franchise history with a $102 million contract, also is being sued in a civil case by a Nevada hotel employee who has accused him of sexually assaulting her in 2008.

--- The student told police Roethlisberger assaulted her in the bathroom of a bar in the college town of Milledgeville early on the morning of March 5. They had met earlier in the night as they bar-hopped, she with her sorority sisters and he with an entourage.

On Friday, Milledgeville Police Chief Woodrow Blue confirmed that Sgt. Jerry Blash, the officer who took the first report from Roethlisberger's accuser, resigned from the force Wednesday, a day before the Georgia Bureau of Investigation released the case documents.

The documents show Blash acknowledged to investigators that he made derogatory statements about Roethlisberger's accuser to other officers and that some in Roethlisberger's party may have overheard him. He was the only officer to interview Roethlisberger, with whom he had posed for pictures earlier in the night. Calls to a number listed for him rang unanswered.

The documents also show that after the college student's accusations surfaced, a 16-year-old in a youth law enforcement program run by the Milledgeville police told authorities he had been told about incidents involving Roethlisberger and a friend's sister. The 16-year-old told police the woman's brother told him that Roethlisberger twice made unwanted sexual advances.

In a statement to police on March 5, the young woman said Roethlisberger encouraged her and her friends to do numerous shots. Then one of his bodyguards escorted her into a hallway at the Capital City nightclub, sat her on a stool and left. She said Roethlisberger walked down the hallway and exposed himself.

"I told him it wasn't OK, no, we don't need to do this and I proceeded to get up and try to leave," she said, according to the police documents. "I went to the first door I saw, which happened to be a bathroom."

According to her statement, Roethlisberger then followed her into the bathroom and shut the door.

"I still said no, this is not OK, and he then had sex with me," she wrote. "He said it was OK. He then left without saying anything."

Two of her friends said they saw a bodyguard lead her into the hallway and then saw Roethlisberger follow. They said they couldn't see their friend but knew she was drunk and were worried about her.

Ann Marie Lubatti told police she approached one of Roethlisberger's two bodyguards and said, "This isn't right. My friend is back there with Ben. She needs to come back right now."

She said the bodyguard wouldn't look her in the eye and said he didn't know what she was talking about. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation identified that bodyguard as Ed Joyner, a Pennsylvania trooper, and the man who led Roethlisberger's accuser down the hallway as Anthony Barravecchio, an officer on the force in the Pittsburgh suburb of Coraopolis.

--- A Pennsylvania state trooper can't continue to work as a personal assistant to Ben Roethlisberger because he was there when the Pittsburgh Steelers star was accused of sexual assault in Georgia.

The Pennsylvania State Police said Wednesday that Trooper Ed Joyner's outside work exceeded the scope of what was permitted. They also say "he is alleged to have demeaned the image" of the state police.

Joyner got the OK in 2005 to work as Roethlisberger's assistant. Police regulations require permission for any outside work for which troopers will receive compensation or "consideration."

--- OK, now tell me Ben did nothing wrong.

(Mathison, a Weirton resident, is the sports editor of the Herald-Star and The Weirton Daily Times and can be contacted at mmathison@heraldstaronline.com)